The great trouble with that picture was this, and I don’t know whether you noticed it or not: but when we got through with the picture, something had happened to the processing of the sound, and we had to throw the complete soundtrack out and dub the whole thing from the beginning to end – mostly dialogue, because the recording of the music was all right, they had that on other film. The only thing we kept from the original soundtrack was an emotional sequence with a chinese girl in it; they kept that with all its imperfections, and worked and worked to get them out.

Walter Lang, Focus on Film, Summer 1974

The very principle of Cinerama conflicts with cinema’s current requirements; the success of the Todd American Optical is significant on this point: without renouncing to involve the spectator with its enormous screen, its main aim is a surplus of realism that Cinerama was a long way from achieving. This surplus is provided first of all by the sharpness of the images which allows for quite a lot of play with depth of field. Cinemascope 55 also combines the advantages of Scope with those of VistaVision. And the realism of The King and I, which foreshadows future explorations, provides as proof of its strength a subtle play between painted backdrops and real landscapes.

Luc Moullet, Cahiers du cinéma, février 1957